


everyone you love will all go away (i can't even swim in these waves i made)

by sapphicish



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, and oh boy does she have a lot of them, hilda spellman move back into the bedroom with your sister so she stops being depressed challenge, salem saves the day ft. zelda spellman's issues!, zelda doesn't know how to take care of a baby DO YOU ZELDA...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 15:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16578743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: Not even aninfantwants to be anywhere near her. That's laughably pathetic, Zelda knows.





	everyone you love will all go away (i can't even swim in these waves i made)

**Author's Note:**

> god i wrote this exhausted n im gonna go pass out now but like...i didnt even check for mistakes so dont read this TOO closely

The child isn't yet named even a week after Zelda takes her when she's standing over her crib, listening to her nonstop squalling. It makes her spine tingle unpleasantly, makes her insides feel like they're coiling up in tight, tight knots, the pressure never to release until the crying _stops._ She's tried everything, or so it feels like to her; carrying the child close to her, swaying back and forth in place, bouncing her, feeding her, changing her, shouting at her. Nothing works, and it feels to Zelda like nothing ever will at this point.

The distance between her and Hilda feels like a long stretch of roiling sea, and Sabrina is at the academy. Here she is, alone; here she is, with a child who seems to loathe her for taking her away from her damned father, with a child who seems intent on driving her absolutely mad. Sabrina had been such a quiet, bubbly child compared to this, and though Zelda hadn't ever held her more than once or twice when she was this age, it's still so different.

This child, this child she's stolen, this child without a name – she isn't happy. Even when tears streak down her chubby cheeks, Zelda thinks that she is not even _sad._ She's angry, furious, lashing out at everything around her, and Zelda's certain that if she had the magical energy to pull on, she'd bring the very foundations of the house around them crashing down in fiery wreckage.

But she doesn't; of course she doesn't. Instead, she just screams and screams and screams.

Eventually, at her wit's end, Zelda casts a silencing spell around her; in the air rather than directly on the child, because even now the idea of stifling her cries with magic in a more direct manner seems almost cruel. Though that's ridiculous, of course. It wouldn't matter. Children are pliable and meant to be trained in one way or another, and if magic is the best way to do that, so be it.

She spares them both the trouble anyway.

Who will know, that she can't even be angry enough to punish the child in some way? To silence her permanently, to cast a sleeping spell so that she can finally rest rather than fret? Hilda is gone. Sabrina is gone. Everyone is gone, and she is alone.

(True, Sabrina returns every night that she can, frequently, and offers countless name suggestions all while she croons down at the infant; true, Ambrose is there, plucking those names out of the air and tossing them aside the same way Zelda does, the same way Hilda does as if the names 'Lavender' or 'Petunia' are any better than Sabrina's 'Sophia' or 'Annabeth', but they both keep trying—they all keep trying.

But Sabrina has the academy to go to. Ambrose has...whatever Ambrose has. What does Zelda have?

True, Hilda is not far gone from her at all, and has made it clear to her a thousand times over, as though desperate for Zelda to know it, that she can come to her anytime she likes if she's having trouble with the child. But Hilda is _busy,_ now. Hilda has a _life,_ now. Hilda feels separated from her now, and different, and independent, and – it makes Zelda sick. 

Physically, once. Hilda had come home late in the evening, airy with happiness, happy to be away from Zelda, happy to be working alongside mortals or whatever she did now, and Zelda had listened to her humming, had watched from the darkness as she went up the stairs and into her room – not their room, _her room_ – and closed the door behind her. And then Zelda had turned, and gone into the bathroom, and shut the door very quietly; and then there she was, retching against porcelain.)

Not even an _infant_ wants to be anywhere near her. That's laughably pathetic, Zelda knows.

After the spell takes hold and the noises are muffled though the child's mouth continues to move, Zelda sits on the edge of the bed and stares into the crib, fingers trembling in her lap. Her whole body is sore, as though she had suffered under a physical weight, as though every cry was a blow to her body, one that tenderized flesh and broke bone. It feels like it, sometimes. It's only been a week, and it feels exactly like that.

Sabrina is good with the baby, and Ambrose is good with the baby, and of course Hilda is excellent with the baby, and Zelda – Zelda, whose responsibility is the baby, because she had been the one to take her, had been the one to make this momentous decision not knowing that she would be alone in doing it, is...not excellent.

She wants to be. She aches with the constant, horrible desire to be, swearing that every single time she picks the child up in her arms that _this will be the time._ This will be the time it works, and her touch soothes rather than enrages or upsets, the child will still and fall silent and coo herself into sated, happy sleep in Zelda's arms.

That hasn't happened so far.

Zelda gets the crib, gets the toys, the milk, the diapers, multiple pacifiers, everything a child needs. And still, the ungrateful little brat doesn't recognize her efforts. It's enough to make Zelda want to wring someone's neck – not the child's, of course, but _someone's._ Hilda looks like a tempting target more than once, when she's going down the stairs and Zelda thinks of just pushing her, but then of course her sister would pout afterwards and she'd have to wait on the porch for her to emerge from the grave as usual, feeling an uneasiness in her stomach all the while, thinking of _what if._ What if she doesn't come back, or what if she's angry with me afterwards, what if she decides to move out again, this time out of the house, out of Greendale, out of her life forever –

So Zelda, in that moment, watches her sister go down the stairs, blissfully unaware of her thought process, her fingers itching and her thoughts crawling.

Zelda is full of nausea and rage, and has nowhere to direct it. She can't even contact Father Blackwood, for – well, _obvious reasons._ Can't even bury herself in one carnal, pointless act after the other, such a relief that would last only so long until he departed from her or she departed from him, feeling nothing at all.

Most of all, Zelda is full of exhaustion.

She even thinks of giving in once or twice; going through the overwhelming humiliation of stepping out of her room and down the hall to Hilda's, actually knocking as though she's a stranger in her own home, asking – _please, please take the child, I can't stand another moment of this, please._

As if she would ever go through with it. But it's a thought she entertains, one of countless others over the passing days.

“Stop,” she says aloud to the child, as though that will work. It never has, and so of course it doesn't now; it isn't as if she can even hear her cries anymore, but the way her face is deep and red and twisted and furious, scrunched up with all the childish emotions any infant her age ever feels overwhelmed with – it's no better, really.

The silence is no better.

Certainly not when it's broken by a meow.

Zelda startles violently, eyes darting down to the black cat poised in the doorway. It takes her a longer couple of moments than she'd like for her heartrate to calm, but when it has she stands, eyes narrowed.

“How did you get into my bedroom, Salem?” She sighs, jabs a finger in the direction of the space just outside. “Get out. _Honestly,_ I thought I'd moved past the talks with Sabrina about keeping better control over you. As any witch should with their familiar. What does that girl do besides coddle you?”

The creature's head tilts a little, ears flicking. Zelda can hear the voice though it's faint enough that she has to strain to listen to it, something scratching lightly at the outermost edges of her hearing. _I can get into most places. I am, after all, a familiar._ Somehow, he sounds sarcastic.

Zelda's eyes roll, enough that it makes her skull ache—or perhaps that's just the knowledge that the baby is still shrieking beyond the spell. 

Zelda hasn't any idea how the little thing hasn't exhausted herself yet, with so much of that anger inside of her, and if she wasn't so irritated about it all she'd be impressed with the constant willpower and vigor she's shown throughout the week. “Yes, yes, I know. Must I tell you to get out again, or do I have to force you? Throw you out by the tail, perhaps? It might teach you a lesson or two about _privacy._ ”

This time, Salem doesn't speak at all. Instead, he crosses the space between himself and the child with a single leap, leaning back onto his paws and bounding up into the air only to settle on the edge of the crib where she's swaddled in blankets, a pressure that rocks it back and forth faintly. Salem is not her familiar, and so she cannot understand him if he doesn't speak directly. Still, he's purring heavily even when she steps forward to give him a harsh correction, hand outstretched to yank him back forcibly and stop him from doing _whatever_ he's doing. 

Zelda freezes halfway there when she has a realization.

The baby has stopped crying.

The spell is still in effect; but she can tell immediately by the way the infant's little face relaxes, lips pursed and eyes fluttering at the mere sight of Salem. Face still slick with tears and possibly drool – something in Zelda cringes at the thought – but...still. She's still, and stillness means silence, and silence means...

Zelda waves a hand, and the spell falls.

The silence is true.

Salem meows again, faintly. Then he makes the final little jump down into the crib proper, and curls up against her side. Little fingers grab at his fur, his tail, lazily holding on. He doesn't seem to mind.

“She stopped,” Zelda hears herself say faintly, doesn't know if the shock is stronger than the sheer relief that washes over her like a cool tide. _She stopped. She stopped. Oh, thank Satan, she stopped._

Salem makes that little vibrating not-quite-purr noise in the depth of his chest, a sort of rolling 'mrow', the way felines do. It sounds smug, and it sounds like he's saying _of course she did,_ but it doesn't sound like he's rubbing it in that he – a familiar – could do something Zelda could not, for days and days.

That is the only thing that stops her from throwing him out of the room.

Well.

Not the only thing. The sudden silence certainly helps.

“How did you do that?” Later, Zelda will hate herself for the tone of her voice; a little on the edge of quivering, a little on the edge of grateful, a little on the edge of _please never leave this room as long as you can keep this child silent._

Salem looks up at her. _I am a familiar,_ he says, as though that means everything, as though that's a good and clear and sensible sort of answer.

Zelda stares for a long moment; then she sits down on her bed again and closes her eyes and breathes.

She doesn't know how many minutes pass, but when she opens her eyes again the girl is sleeping soundly in her crib, a tiny fist balled up against her mouth. Salem uncurls and Zelda wants to shout _stop,_ but feels her voice freeze in her throat with anticipation, hoping that the baby won't stir even as Salem leaps from her side and down onto the floor, winding his way around Zelda's ankles lithely with a warm purr.

The baby doesn't wake. The silence continues, the silence remains, stretching on and on all around them. Zelda's fingers unclench from their painful tightness around the edge of the bed.

_I serve Sabrina, for I am her familiar. But I serve you, too. It isn't a crime to ask for help. You will learn that one day. All of them are here, still; they haven't left you._

Zelda's eyes snap open, fire licking at her tongue, agony at her fingertips. She could incinerate this cat from ear to tail in the same second the impudent creature takes a breath and it wouldn't matter at all –

She looks down, and he is gone. And the door is closed. And she is alone again, sitting across from the crib, staring at the floor Salem once stood on.

Zelda takes a breath; takes two, three. Then she stands and flings her robe away from herself, decides to take the opportunity she's been given to get sleep before she wakes to the same horribly familiar screeching of a child she doesn't know what to do with. She waves the lights off, crawls into the bed, lays there straight and stiff and staring at the ceiling for five minutes before the discomfort of her usually preferred sleeping position gets to be too much and she turns onto her side, facing the crib.

Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow, she will give the girl a name.

Tonight, Zelda stares at her little face framed by moonlight and shadow until her eyes drift shut and she falls asleep, lulled by the quiet.

For once, she doesn't dream.

**Author's Note:**

> salem is the genuine mvp of the spellman family........i wont hear otherwise....s2 is just going to be salem saving everyone from everything....do it aguirre-sacasa you wont


End file.
